I follow entirely too many idiots on twitter. I'm almost positive that 90% of these people spewing stuff about racism in the justice system have no knowledge of this case outside of "somebody who wasn't black fired a gun and shot somebody who was black."

Gun violence is never the answer but there was enough evidence suggesting Trayvon Martin was not the "perfectly innocent young boy" the media and word-of-mouth made him out to be for me to not feel strongly about him walking. Zimmerman's story was shady but so was Martin's so I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with tonight's verdict, one thing everyone should agree on is that the "Stand Your Ground" law is horribly flawed. There is too much wiggle room, left far too open for interpretation, and the price is way too high.

topshelf wrote:Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with tonight's verdict, one thing everyone should agree on is that the "Stand Your Ground" law is horribly flawed. There is too much wiggle room, left far too open for interpretation, and the price is way too high.

Yet that's not what this ruling was. The jury saw that Zimmermans case of self defense gave reasonable doubt.

topshelf wrote:Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with tonight's verdict, one thing everyone should agree on is that the "Stand Your Ground" law is horribly flawed. There is too much wiggle room, left far too open for interpretation, and the price is way too high.

It's been 2 and a half weeks and you didn't know stand your ground has no relevance in this trial???

It didn't have any relevance in this case, but Stand Your Ground does potentially give a "mall cop" a sense of protection when entering into an altercation. For example, in the Texas case I linked a few pages back, the guy went to a neighbor's birthday party and start yelling at them about loud music. When they basically told him to f off, he drew his weapon and said, "I'm standing my ground" before eventually shooting and killing someone.

Hockeynut! wrote:It didn't have any relevance in this case, but Stand Your Ground does potentially give a "mall cop" a sense of protection when entering into an altercation. For example, in the Texas case I linked a few pages back, the guy went to a neighbor's birthday party and start yelling at them about loud music. When they basically told him to f off, he drew his weapon and said, "I'm standing my ground" before eventually shooting and killing someone.

Just because some crazy ******* does something doesn't mean a law is bad.

Hockeynut! wrote:It didn't have any relevance in this case, but Stand Your Ground does potentially give a "mall cop" a sense of protection when entering into an altercation. For example, in the Texas case I linked a few pages back, the guy went to a neighbor's birthday party and start yelling at them about loud music. When they basically told him to f off, he drew his weapon and said, "I'm standing my ground" before eventually shooting and killing someone.

Just because some crazy ******* does something doesn't mean a law is bad.

Hockeynut! wrote:It didn't have any relevance in this case, but Stand Your Ground does potentially give a "mall cop" a sense of protection when entering into an altercation. For example, in the Texas case I linked a few pages back, the guy went to a neighbor's birthday party and start yelling at them about loud music. When they basically told him to f off, he drew his weapon and said, "I'm standing my ground" before eventually shooting and killing someone.

And he was convicted of murder because this wasn't SYG. SYG laws only differentiate from basic self defense in the idea of duty to retreat. In SC for example, if you can get out of a situation without increasing your danger, you need to do that before using deadly force. In FL you don't need to. But the element of a reasonable fear of great harm or death still needs to exist.

But in this case, it's basic self defense because you can't retreat when someone is on top of you hitting you.

DelPen wrote:And he was convicted of murder because this wasn't SYG. SYG laws only differentiate from basic self defense in the idea of duty to retreat. In SC for example, if you can get out of a situation without increasing your danger, you need to do that before using deadly force. In FL you don't need to. But the element of a reasonable fear of great harm or death still needs to exist.

It's hard to find many articles on the FL law that aren't based around the Zimmerman case, but one I found said something like there were 3x as many "self defense" claim after SYG than before (http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafe ... le/1128317). I just feel the law has the very real potential to give some idiot the confidence that he can get involved in an argument and shoot someone, then say, "I was afraid for my life and was standing my ground." Hopefully more innocent lives are saved by law abiding citizens rightfully protecting themselves, but I can see a lot of guys who are already prone to getting involved in fights getting in deeper than normal because they think they can use SYG as an out.

Verdict was a no brainer for anyone putting the whole story together. Even though the Jury did not get all available information about the kind of person Trayvon Martin was - they also thankfully did not get all the BS from the media whose sole purpose was to blind the American people to the basic truths of this story.

DelPen wrote:And he was convicted of murder because this wasn't SYG. SYG laws only differentiate from basic self defense in the idea of duty to retreat. In SC for example, if you can get out of a situation without increasing your danger, you need to do that before using deadly force. In FL you don't need to. But the element of a reasonable fear of great harm or death still needs to exist.

But in this case, it's basic self defense because you can't retreat when someone is on top of you hitting you.

My problem with it here in Florida, DelPen, is "reasonable fear" is left far too open for interpretation. My original post isn't a cry to get rid of "Stand Your Ground", as I think the premise of the law is sound, but what stops a guy from killing someone out of rage and then stating that he feared his life? It's way to vague when you consider a life can be lost because of one's interpretation of feelings.

oh god facebook... I swear some of the people I see posting haven't read a single article or watched a single snippet from the trial, except for what they saw immediately after TM's death. You can be outraged by this verdict if you want, but the jurors decided the case based on the evidence and testimony given in court and that's the way our legal system works.

DelPen wrote:And he was convicted of murder because this wasn't SYG. SYG laws only differentiate from basic self defense in the idea of duty to retreat. In SC for example, if you can get out of a situation without increasing your danger, you need to do that before using deadly force. In FL you don't need to. But the element of a reasonable fear of great harm or death still needs to exist.

But in this case, it's basic self defense because you can't retreat when someone is on top of you hitting you.

My problem with it here in Florida, DelPen, is "reasonable fear" is left far too open for interpretation. My original post isn't a cry to get rid of "Stand Your Ground", as I think the premise of the law is sound, but what stops a guy from killing someone out of rage and then stating that he feared his life? It's way to vague when you consider a life can be lost because of one's interpretation of feelings.

I had posted about that a few pages back. What is reasonable fear? One punch? Two punches? Three? Does a punch even need to be thrown? Do you have to be bleeding? If so how much blood? Do you have to be almost unconscious to claim self defense? There is ZERO information as far as what happened between the 911 phone call from Zimmerman and gun shot other than there was a scuffle and multiple witnesses corroborate that TM was on top. The apparently was enough for the jury to decide there was a reasonable fear in GZ mind to shot TM.

count2infinity wrote:oh god facebook... I swear some of the people I see posting haven't read a single article or watched a single snippet from the trial, except for what they saw immediately after TM's death. You can be outraged by this verdict if you want, but the jurors decided the case based on the evidence and testimony given in court and that's the way our legal system works.

Yes. Given the way the law is written, and paired with the presentation that the jury witnessed, the "Not Guilty" verdict is no surprise. I don't think there was anything else they could choose, given the situation.

count2infinity wrote:I had posted about that a few pages back. What is reasonable fear? One punch? Two punches? Three? Does a punch even need to be thrown? Do you have to be bleeding? If so how much blood? Do you have to be almost unconscious to claim self defense? There is ZERO information as far as what happened between the 911 phone call from Zimmerman and gun shot other than there was a scuffle and multiple witnesses corroborate that TM was on top. The apparently was enough for the jury to decide there was a reasonable fear in GZ mind to shot TM.

Agreed. There is zero information as to what took place from the moment GZ hung up the phone until Trayvon was dead. There is no indication on who started the scuffle, only who finished it. If Zimmerman started the scuffle with Martin, couldn't it be stated that Martin was standing his ground with his fists? Absolutely. But we'll never know.

The law states that, once you fear for your life, taking the life of another person is justified, and as long as it is written this way, there will be many more cases that end up like this. When confrontation happens, there are too many other emotions that are going on that can cloud one's ability to think reasonably and decipher whether or not they are in true danger (anger, rage, confusion, etc.), and to allow one to take another's life while in that state of disorientation based solely on that product of that state of disorientation is unjust.

MRandall25 wrote:Didn't take long for people to basically say "Zimmerman got off because he's white and Trayvon was black".

You can thank the media (and ignorance of those listening to it) for that. I loved hearing the defense team's press conference last night basically blaming the media for the 'racial injustice' mantra being forced into this case. Mark O'Mara (lead defense attorney) also said bluntly that, in his opinion, had GZ been black no charges would've been filed. O'Mara and West's disdain for the media in general was intense and sincere.

It makes me sick that there are undoubtedly members of the media right now crossing their fingers for a riot / flash mob response to this verdict. For all of the bad jokes and dislike for attorneys in this country, we all know and expect them to be crafters of stories. It's a shame that our media has become the same.

malkinshair wrote:Mark O'Mara (lead defense attorney) also said bluntly that, in his opinion, had GZ been black no charges would've been filed.

In my opinion, O'Mara's statement only prolongs and instigates the racial tension that surrounds this case. Charges should have been filed because someone died and the story of how it happened was beyond shady. If you take race out of the case, it's still a shady situation. In his position, O'Mara should attempt to diffuse the racial outcry rather than propagate it.

But, ultimately, I blame no one but the media for the racial attachment to this case. In any situation like this, there will always be those "fringe" members of society who cite racism and cause a scene. They were there in both the black an white communities. So, what does the local media do? They take their cameras and trucks into the worst neighborhoods in Orlando and Sanford and allow individuals who are acting on both their feelings for the case AND the fact that they have an opportunity to be on tv to make a fool of themselves. Then the media spins the story as if their behavior and feelings are the norm here in Central Florida. It is sickening.